First released in 2013, Europa Universalis IV is newest iteration of Paradox Interactive's acclaimed grand strategy series. Running from 1444 to 1820, the game spans the globe in intricate detail, allowing you to take the reins as one of over 400 possible historical nations and set them up for greatness through diplomacy, colonization, and (most of all) conquest, over the course of this dynamic period of history. Every country on the map is playable, and the possibilities range from giants like the Kingdom of France and the Ming Dynasty of China, all the way down to tiny German city-states nestled away in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, embattled Japanese daimyo, or even native tribes in Alaska.

While some regions (especially those with dedicated DLCs) have more to them than others, nearly every nation in the game boasts at least its own unique national ideas, a set of bonuses modeled after its history that affect how they play. This, plus the unique political situation in any given region, a robust and dynamic AI taking control of every non-human nation, countless events, a whole slew of unique mechanics, as well as regular content updates, means the game can feel very different with each new playthrough even after hundreds (or often, thousands) of hours. This game isn't for everybody, and it can take a lot of time to get past the initial learning curve. But if you get over that hurdle, there's really nothing else that compares.

Taking the role of a nation within this era of history it is your goal to remain independent and work your way towards becoming a global superpower. Like in past EU games you have control over your military with which you can use to fight your enemies on land and sea or, if force does not work, you might use your diplomatic clout to organise grand coalitions or attempt to vassalise weaker neighbours through peaceful means. You might also want to try to achieve trade hegemony by using your merchants and navy to make your empire rich off the backs of others. Even then if the Old World does not appeal to you then you can organise explorers and conquistadors to head out into the Terra Incognita to find new lands for which you can send your colonists into with the larger and more powerful colonies eventually become nations within themselves with the potential to declare revolution and independence from the mother country.

It's important to note that EUIV is not turnbased (although you may change the speed with which time passes). The strategy mostly comes not from commanding the battles themselves but from army composition, the use of good commanders and an eye for the right terrain to fight on. For instance, fighting defensively on a mountain will greatly increase the amount of casualties your enemy will take and allows smaller armies to beat much larger ones often, especially with the right general. It is not just a matter of winning battles however as you will also need to occupy enemy provinces or blockade their ports to be able to enforce complete victories over opponents. You will need to know both when it's the right time to start a war and also when you should end it, as a prolonged conflict will often see you hurting at home as your war exhaustion increases and your population grows restless.

At this point Paradox games are probably established enough that this part goes without saying, but just in case, it's important to note that this isn't Total War, if you're coming into it expecting a spectacle. Paradox games like Europa Universalis ascended out of their groghole some years ago now, but at the end of the day it's still lots of looking at numbers, interfaces, and maps. Battles are pretty much the height of what you'll get, and they look like this:

Thrilling, right? Well if those are your last few thousand men and you're hoping desperately for them to hold the line until your ally's reinforcements arrive, it might be, but clearly not so much in a visual sense. Think more like a board game ó this whole series of games was actually based off one ó and there won't be any surprises.

At this point EU4 has had so many updates that you could have played it on launch and be nearly as lost as someone that hasn't played since EU3. I'm not gonna delve into everything here, although there's a very thorough page on the EU4 wiki if you're interested, but here's an overview of what I think are the most important major free changes:

From EU4's launch

Colonial nations: when you colonize the Americas or Australia, rather than controlling the region directly you form autonomous vassal-like subjects that give you tariffs but risk becoming independent if you piss them off

Autonomy and an overhaul to revolt risk: rather than rebels popping up at semi-random, provinces have individual unrest values that feed into rebel factions- when the faction's rebelliousness gets too high, they revolt. One of the ways to combat this is to increase autonomy, which lowers unrest at the cost of loosening your grip on the province (and so getting less of everything out of it).

Forts: rather than every province having to be sieged down individually, now there are far fewer but much stronger forts, and they actually block movement

States & Territories: It used to work so that all your core territory (with a land connection to the capital) was governed without any trouble, and all your distant territory was super inefficient. This new system means you assign what level of governance goes to where. While distant lands will cost more to administer still, you can get a lot more out of an overseas empire than you could beforehand.

Corruption: Sadly a free feature. It's a big crimp on expansion, basically, and forces you to pay a chunk of money when you're overextended or face rising tech costs.

Sailors: The most important change to date, sea-manpower. You're now limited on how many ships you can build based on how many sailors you have. Fortunately, in the likely event you find yourself running low on them, there's a whole building chain dedicated to squeezing more of them out of your provinces.

Institutions: This one totally changed the game. Rather than the non-European parts of the world getting a flat tech penalty they have to westernize out of, now over the course of the game a series of institutions will appear in one location (generally Europe, but not always) and spread from there across the world. Until each reaches you, you get a mounting tech penalty ó but once they do, you get none.

Devastation: If a province is under siege/ looted etc for a long time, over time it'll get more and more devastated, revolting, and ineffective.

These are just the very most notable changes though, there's really so much more. Thousands of new provinces, more than a hundred new nations, countless events, AI improvements, interface updates, modding support. The game has been built upon over and over, almost to a fault, even, and that's not even getting into the DLC.

At this point I expect most people who had EU3 and are interested in 4 have already got it, but just in case, here's the list of major changes, courtesy of the old thread.

From EU3:

New trade system that focuses on controlling and steering trade towards your home node

Improved AI & graphics so that your ships and soldiers look nice while they're being destroyed fighting over river crossings

Revamped Idea & Technology systems that allows you to focus your nation down specific paths and unlock unique national bonuses

Introduction of Monarch Points which, depending on your ruler and advisors, can limit or assist you in various ways

More stable multiplayer for when you all want to collectively crush France and be crushed by Russia

Steam Workshop integration which makes it easier to find new mods and keep the ones that you have updated

Using the converter dlc for CK2 you can even import your saves over into EU IV at any point with unique ideas for certain nations such as Roman, Jerusalem and a bunch of others!

Well here's the thing with Paradox games. On the one hand you get constant support and free updates for years, on the other hand, you get this:

No price reductions, and even the sales feel like they're getting a bit stingier. Fret not though! You really, really, do not need to get everything. Not even close; there's two or three expansions that we tend to classify as "necessary", but even without those the game's still extremely playable. The devs make an active effort to balance features so they don't require DLC (although some would say to mixed effect, with one glaring issue especially), and if you ever do want to try out expansion features, multiplayer games enable DLC content based on what the host has, so you can hop in a goon game (more on that below) to try it all out.

All that said, if you do want to get some DLC, here's a breakdown, with the most important at the top. There's a long page on the wiki as usual, with links so you can see full feature breakdowns if you're into that. Most every expansion has regional focus of some kind, as well as some more general features, so it's worth looking at some that you think might not interest you based on their main billing if they have some important features. Also, wait for a sale.

(in sort-of-subjective descending order of importance)The Necessarythese are the most important ones, get these first

Common Sense
This is a decent expansion by its self, but it's "necessary" because of one feature - development, the ability to click a button on your provinces and make it better. Actually, that feature by its self is generally mediocre ó normally you want to expand through conquest instead. But combined with the institution system, it means you can spawn in institutions at will rather than having to rely on their natural spread. This is absolutely game-changing in the non-European world, since it means you never have to be behind on tech again.

It also comes with some flavor for England, Protestants, and Buddhists.

Art of War
This one is commonly touted as the best expansion in the game, but a big part of that is the patch it came alongside (which added nearly a thousand provinces to the map), which doesn't matter so much when you're buying it three years later. Still though, it lets you transfer occupation of provinces to war allies and vassals (which makes expanding a heck of a lot less messy), lets you declare wars because of subject claims, make armies out of templates, and also a major mechanic for the Thirty Years War, which can add a lot when you're playing in Europe. Lots of minor quality of life stuff basically, but it adds up to a lot, and when you're looking at tutorials and asking for help, a lot of people will assume you already have this one.

The Not Necessary But Majorthese have features that touch many parts of the game, and you'll get a lot out of them no matter where you play

Rights of Man
My pick, this adds traits to your rulers and generals, as well as queens. Lots of flavor for your court life, basically. Also great powers, a system to let you bully your weaker neighbors or fling yourself into a major war you'd otherwise have no business in. Also mechanics for African religions as well as a government for the Ottomans.

The CossacksEstates! Internal politics ó finally something to do beyond warring. Haha no. But this expansion is still pretty good, and while estates weren't totally what we were all hoping, they can add a variety of boons if you play them right. ( update: as of the Dharma expansion, these are being added to the base game!) More importantly, a totally different alliance system, based on a system of trust and favors. Basically meaning you can't call in your giant ally to fight all your wars for you without giving them something in return, it makes the diplomatic game a lot more engaging. Also adds mechanics for Eurasian Nomads, and because of estates being moved to the base game, as of Dharma, several unique estate types and a Cossack government are being added in their place.

Cradle of Civilization
This one focuses on the Middle East, giving the region a bevy of unique government types (especially for the Mamluks and Persia) as well as new unique mechanics for Islam, in the form of "Islamic Schools" that subdivide it into various sects, adding some unique flavor and extra depth between the schools for intra-Islamic interactions. In addition to that, there's also army professionalism (not to be confused with army tradition, another game mechanic which naturally remains completely unrelated), a system that has you balance short term payoff with long term benefits for your military, as well as army drilling, which for a steep cost lets you eek a little bit more out of the quality of your troops temporarily, although most people don't consider it worthwhile to do.

Mandate of Heaven
This one's pretty controversial. The base of it is fairly solid (although there's nothing totally necessary), but it also adds one feature that sorta breaks the game when you're on the periphery of China. Except, turns out the periphery of China is more like India, Persia, and Kazakhstan, rather than Korea and Vietnam like you'd think. Still though there are a lot of new mechanics and flavor for East Asia, both for religions and governments. I contend it makes playing there (when you can work within China's system rather than having to brush up against it) massively more engaging, but some people disagree. Unrelated to Asia though, it also includes the diplomatic macrobuilder, one of the best additions to the game in a long time, as well as the ages system that can give you a series of short-term goals and bonuses.

Regional / Specializedthese tend to have a more specialized focus, so they're not so necessary unless you wanna play one particular government style/ culture/ religion etc

El Dorado
This is gonna be essential for a certain kind of player, and almost never touched for others. Its big feature is the nation designer, which does what you'd expect; create a country however strong or weak, big or small, whatever culture, ideas, with whatever king or queen. Other than that though, it also has mechanics for Mesoamerica and the nations of the Andes, as well as a nifty auto-explore feature for Europeans in the Americas that has some flavor and stuff. Mostly this expansion is about the nation designer though, so decide as you will based on that.

Wealth of Nations
Are you an outward looking, virile European nation, with an interest in exploiting Asia? This is the expansion for you, since it comes with trade companies, which are basically just bonuses for extra-continental provinces. Honestly it's a bit boring, now I think about it, they don't really act on their own or anything. It also has privateers, allowing you to get money out of trade zones you can't otherwise access, as well as mechanics for the Hindu and Reformed religions. Oh yeah, most importantly, Trade capitals allow you to choose where your home-trade port is without having to move your capital, meaning you can get the most out of EU4's linear trading system no matter how unfortunate your home-node happens to be.

Mare Nostrum
This one got mocked for a while because it came in the patch alongside sailors and corruption, but it has naval missions which takes a lot of the tedium out of naval combat, trade leagues allowing minor cities to band together for mutual defense, and Condottieri, the ability to loan out a stack of your dudes to another nation's war. Or hire them for an extra punch. Personally I don't find the AI makes enough use of it for it to be interesting, but I hear if I stopped wussing out and playing on normal difficulty then it might be a major feature. Also some stuff for Barbary Nations, including the ability to shove a popup into every Mediterranean nations' face every other year.

Conquest of Paradise
A special set of mechanics for Native Americans, but unfortunately gameplay there has been in a sorry state for a while so I wouldn't recommend it for that unless you're really invested. Also random new world, which is a kinda neat feature that lets you randomize... the new world. So you never know what you're gonna find when you sail across the Atlantic, and can't just beeline straight for the best parts.

Third Rome
This is a flavor pack that adds extra stuff for Russia that makes it horrendously overpowered, as well as a mechanic for Orthodox Christianity. If you wanna play Russia, this is nice to have, otherwise there's not much to it. Worth noting that it comes with the unit and advisor graphics bundled in (normally they're sold in a separate DLC), which is why it might seem a bit expensive for what there is.

Res Publica
Factions for Merchant Republics, as well as a unique government type for the Dutch. There's not much to this one, but it is pretty cheap to be fair. This also had a vital feature in the form of national focus, which lets you make up for a deficient monarch by specializing your monarch points, but that got bundled in with the Common Sense DLC later on so I'd pick it up there instead.

Rule Britannia
Similar to Third Rome, this is a flavor pack for the British Isles, adding a bunch of extra missions as well as an Anglican religions. Technically it adds a couple of global mechanics too, but they're so non-impactful that they're really not even worth mentioning. If you want to play in the British Isles, this is an okay pack, if not, it's probably not. Worth noting, like the Russian pack, this one also comes bundled in with unique unit models, although no advisor portraits this time.

The Unknown

Dharma
Unique mechanics for India, with unique governments, missions, estates, and more, as well as a mechanic for non-Indian nations to get a foothold on the subcontinent. More globally, there's also new mechanics for customizing your government as well as revamped policies. It's not out yet, so we'll have to see how it turns out, but from the dev diaries it's looking promising.

Content Packs & Minor DLC

DLC for EU4 can be divided into two... and a half categories. There's the major expansions (listed above), and for each of those, a corresponding Content Pack, which, despite the name, are purely aesthetic / music packs, and come with no additional gameplay stuff. The value of these is really personal preference depending on whether you're the type that actually cares about that stuff. Personally I really like the additional visual flair they add, but if you're the kind of player who never zooms in then obviously it's gonna be of lesser value to you.

Now I said "two and a half categories" because they only started making the content packs to bundle all the extra stuff together after a year or so of DLC, so the earlier stuff is a lot messier. That said, it's generally pretty self explanatory. If it says unit pack it's got units, if it says advisor portraits it's advisors, if it says music it's music, and so on. The exception to this is the stuff that was released right around the game's launch, all of which has been bundled in the Early Upgrade Pack. It's a mix of unit models and minor content for a few nations, most of which isn't terribly important.

Paradox games are notoriously hard to get into, and with 4 years of content teetering on top of it, EU4 is definitely no exception. It took me about 20 hours of gameplay before I could make heads or tales of anything, and 1300 hours later I'm still learning new things every now and then.

I haven't tried it in a long time, but from what I hear the in-game tutorial is pretty lacking. So my advice, is just play! Ask away in the thread if you have any questions, and I'd recommend for your first game remembering the console key ` and the cash command in case anything goes too wrong as you get a handle on the interface. There is a lot of information on your screen, but at the end of the day you can get by without knowing what half of it means. That said, a few things you really should pay attention to:

Aggressive expansion

For every province you take, other nations will notice. How much they'll care will depend on a lot of factors I won't get into here, but there are times when you can eat a whole nation in one gulp, and other times when more than a couple of provinces will get half of Europe breathing down your neck and forming a coalition to attack you together. You can figure out which one it'll be based on a number visible in your peace deal:

Not good, right? So pay attention to that.

Overextension

So you just managed to take a bunch of land from your enemy, and avoided getting torn apart again by a coalition. Good job! Unfortunately, rebels seem to be popping up constantly for some reason?

Every province you take adds to your overextension (more valuable ones more than less valuable). It gets more painful the higher you go, but the big threshhold is at 100. You don't wanna go over 100 overextension, it doubles how fast your rebels will progress and ushers in a whole bunch of bad events. Even under 100 overextension things can be difficult, but more than that can be nation-ruining unless you're extremely prepared for it.

Truces

Don't trucebreak. There's a helpful warning when you declare war if you have a truce with someone still. Pay attention to it.

In general, look at your interface. Hover over numbers, because nearly everything is explained in tooltips, and nearly everything is warned against. If it isn't (or even if it is, but you didn't notice, or want a better explanation), feel free to ask in the thread, and I'm sure lots of people will be willing to help.

Also, use the wiki! It has in-depth articles on almost every facet of the game.

Paradox games are very moddable and there are a lot of mods that change the game, in ways big and small. Check out the Steam workshop and browse for yourself if there's something that appeals.

It's worth mentioning, a number of posters in the thread have a lot of experience modding, so like for game tips, feel free to ask if there's a number you're trying to figure out how to tweak, or if you want to change a country's starting monarch or something. For bigger questions you might want to check out the official modding forums (you need to be signed in to access them), and the EU4 wiki has a number of articles too.

Multiplayer's been a big focus for the development of EU4, with its balance taking an important role, as well as improvements to stability and all that. They're finally fixing hotjoining for the next patch, even!

Fear because this ragtag developer built a brand on its own and out of nothing, fear because of its networking abilities were enabling it to find and coordinate talents worldwide, fear because Universo Virtual was delivering milestone after milestone at a meagre price, fear because UV was able to raise the interest of the community while having absolutely nothing to show for almost a year, fear for the nearly unmatched popularity of the dev diaries of Magna Mundi, fear because this upstart company was in effect acting like a producer not a developer, fear for UVís assertive behaviour when calling Paradox on past promises, fear because out of a slight intended to hurt the capabilities of the team this amateur developer was able to force Paradox hand in surrendering a better renderer, fear because in the only instance Magna Mundi was shown to the mainstream strategy press with any kind of popularity rating, it got to second place out of more than 11000 titles for a day, was in sixth place for a few more days and in fourteenth for about a week, marks that surpassed Paradox flagship titles by far (regarding that batch of previews, best result for Sengoku was 113th, best result for Crusader Kings 2 was 42nd). Fear also for the way it seemed to sense danger and tricks and other low blows. Fear for the unpredictability of its actions or way of thinking no matter the tricks employed to monitor it. Fear.

Europa Universalis IV: Welcome to the greater Ming Sphere
would have been better given the current state of the game.

Probably gonna play a game as Hormuz once the patch is out but not gonna buy this DLC, fix old poo poo before you try to sell me new stuff. Also Military Tradition bar #2 is one of the dumbest features this game has seen.

This is a nice OP and all but I think we all know what EU4 is really about. Complaining on the internet how terrible it is and what should be done to fix it.

Also, on the dlc:

Conquest of Paradise: Some stuff to make North American natives less boring, yay! But they're still boring to play. Also random new world. Pass.

Wealth of Nations: Adds some extra mechanics for Hindu and Reformed Christians. Adds some useful stuff to trading. Get it cheap.

Res Publica: Dutch Republic. Faction system for Merchant Republics which is mostly irrelevant, bunch of events for republics of all sorts. Get it cheap.

Art of War: New reasons to pick a fight with someone, things that make wars easier. 30 years' war. Get this.

El Dorado: Mechanics that make the Aztec, Maya and Inca nations more fun to play. Custom nation designer. Get it cheap or if you think this sounds really cool.

Common Sense: Develop provinces! Make yourself stronger by making your lands better! Spawn Institutions at will! Some other things! Get this.

The Cossacks: Estates. Attempt at modeling internal politics but is really a bunch of bonuses. New alliance system which sucks. Steppe Nomads can now get their Genghis Khan on. Some other stuff. Get it cheap, might want to turn it off sometimes.

Mare Nostrum: Trade leagues, which are useless. Condotierri, which are a mostly-useless gimmick in singleplayer. Pass.

Rights of Man: Your kings, queens and generals get a bit of personality with traits. Some things for sub-saharan African religions. Special government for Ottomans. Pass or get it cheap.

Mandate of Heaven: Let's break the game with the Mandate of Heaven mechanic! Ages, so you can stack more numbers on top of your numbers! Diplomatic macro's, which is legit amazing quality of life. Get it cheap, learn to hate Ming but never turn it off because the macro's are just so good.

Third Rome: Turn Russia OP! Spawn large numbers of Streltsy for free! Pass or get it if you like Russia.

Cradle of Civilization: Bunch of stuff for the Islamic world. New government types, new mechanics for existing ones. Ottomans becomes OP like Russia in Third Rome. Army Professionalism, so you can stack even more numbers on top of your numbers! Should you get it? Who knows!

Dance Officer fucked around with this message at Nov 16, 2017 around 10:38

Europa Universalis IV: Welcome to the greater Ming Sphere
would have been better given the current state of the game.

Probably gonna play a game as Hormuz once the patch is out but not gonna buy this DLC, fix old poo poo before you try to sell me new stuff. Also Military Tradition bar #2 is one of the dumbest features this game has seen.

The Ming Sphere is roughly 20% of the world, which is significant but easy to avoid if you don't want to deal with it (either by playing outside of it or disabling one DLC that came out like a year ago)

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at Nov 16, 2017 around 11:13

The Ming Sphere is roughly 20% of the world, which is significant but easy to avoid if you don't want to deal with it (either by playing outside of it or disabling one DLC that came out like a year ago)

Unless someone weak and pathetic like Portugal colonizes Taiwan, then they get to be tribrutalized too.

In honor of the new thread, I was wondering if people were willing to help me clean up the EU4 page of the Before I Play wiki a bit. I can do the page editing, but if people more knowledgeable than me could point out any bad, obsolete and otherwise inaccurate info then that'd be great. It was last updated in January 2014.

Here's what's on the page if you can't access it for some reason or another:

quote:

- Trade is obtuse, but the basic idea is to use merchants to forward trade from upstream to your capitol node (or some other node you are collecting trade in). Each node in the upstream chain gets a multiplier for forwarded trade, so having a lot of trade power in a series of linked nodes, and forwarding it all means you invent money out of thin air, and it adds up. The default setup for most countries works well enough, so until you want to play with it, you can just leave it like that and forget about it entirely.

- Setting a rival makes it cheaper to demand stuff from them in peace deals, makes your spies (f.inst. diplomats fabricating claims) harder to detect, and will earn you an "Enemy of Enemy" relation bonus with their other rivals (+1/month up to +20). They will of course hate you for it.

- The "Better relations over time" advisor not only make improving relations faster, it importantly also makes negative penalties that decay, decay that much faster (such as "aggressive expansion" from grabbing a lot of provinces quickly). On the topic of AE: Be careful with it. It stacks up quick and can take a long time to go away again.

- Admin power is probably the most valuable of the three types, since it is used to unlock idea groups and increase stability.

- When choosing idea groups, be aware that you need more points to unlock the sub-ideas. Try to pick a category where you will have points to spare. It is, generally, a poor choice to pick a Military group as your first pick, since you gain much more by just straight up teching up military a few times early.

- France is bullshit (or easy-mode if you play as them). They get big armies, their traditions make those better and they have insanely good leaders. By the middle of the game, they can take on the rest of Europe and stand a decent chance at winning. Turning off "Lucky Nations" takes their (and a few other powerhouses, like Austrias) I-Win button away, but they remain a challenge.

- The Ottomans is a good starting nation for a first game. They have a decent army (but are held somewhat in check by a few of their neighbours), interesting events and some options about which direction to expand in.

- If you want achievements, you have to play in Ironman mode, but be aware that the almost constant autosaving that enables can get really annoying later in the game.

- Other than that, pay attention to the tooltips. A lot of info about mechanics is hidden in those.

- Castille is also a good nation for starters. If you get good relations with Aragon, there's a high chance to get an event that downright gives all of their poo poo to you. (The gist of it is that either you need rulers of opposite genders and they don't have a heir during the 15th century, and during that whole century the chance has an effect of triggering, but no longer afterwards.) Castille is also neat because if you get cordial relations with France you basically don' thave to care about much invading you at all and you can work on uniting the peninsula and/or colonising stuff.

- Don't reload when you lose a war or territory. Setbacks are very common when the AI decides to gang up on you for some reason. Just truck on and keep dicking around for a century or so and then change to another country until you get the gist of the mechanics.

- Expanding is a lot more focused on warfare than CK2, and there's a deeper combat system. Getting generals is very important because they make a huge difference.

- Cavalry is OP in the early game. Try to get a 1:1 ratio of cavalry to infantry in the early game because the mixed arms bonus doesn't outweigh the sheer power early game cavalry has. Later on in the game you should look at a 2:1:1 infantry:cavalry:artillery distribution of your armies.

- As for strategy, the simplest thing to do is waltz your massive doomstack into their doomstack and chase it a bit to completely thin them out, preferably destroying the whole thing. If they're fighting on your ground, it's easy, but armies defeated in their homeland will automatically quickly retreat to the furthest gently caress-off province in the realm. So smashing an Ottoman army in Tunis might make them waltz all the way to the Caucasus if they have a massive empire spanning North Africa, for example.

- So what you do is try to kill their stack(s) ASAP and then plop down small stacks on all of their provinces at once, just enough to besiege as many as possible. Play whack-a-mole with any new armies they raise while their morale is low, using one small stack of your own.

- A bit more advanced, but remember that outright annexing provinces is costly and it will take a long time to fully convert their culture and religion if you have to. The most practical way of defeating an enemy is to force them to release vassals, and then working your way on diplomatically annexing them, or even better, annex territory, release that territory as a sovereign state and then start integrating them into your realm. It sounds roundabout, because it is, but 50 years to fully annex your vassal and get cores on them is a lot more practical than annexing the territory and getting rebels for 150 years while you slowly and costly put cores on their provinces.

I'm having a lot of fun playing the Timurids even without the DLC. The patch alone makes the whole region really dynamic and fun. Just won a war for a bunch of my cores back from Ajam (which other surrounding areas started capitalizing on with their own separate wars as soon as I started winning), but as soon as it ended all my vassals declared independence. It's nice to be able to take my time dealing with them and not have to rush to form the Mughals.

Is it ever going to be a V or Paradox is going to stay on Clausewitz until 2020?

(legit question)

Clauswitz is the game engine which if they ever do EU5 could also be on the latest version of Clauswitz.

The EU5 question (which is separate from the Clauswitz question) was discussed a lot in the old thread - I think the general consensus was that Paradox is content to continue to do DLC while people are still buying them up.

No way is there gonna be a V before 2020; earlier this year during Paradoxcon, Johan (the lead) said he wasn't even sure how they'd go about it, so that's basically as much confirmation as you can get that they're not working on it yet.